The First and Second Steps in Essay Writing

Step 1: Begin with a Point, or Thesis

Your first step in writing is to discover what point you want to make and to write that point out
as a single sentence. There are two reasons for doing this. You want to know right from the start
if you have a clear and workable thesis. Also, you will be able to use the thesis as a guide while
writing your essay. At any stage you can ask yourself, Does this support my thesis?
With the thesis as a guide, the danger of drifting away from the point of the essay is greatly
reduced.
Understanding Thesis Statements
In Chapter 1, you learned that effective essays center around a thesis, or main point, that a writer
wishes to express. This central idea is usually presented as a thesis statement in an essay’s
introductory paragraph.
A good thesis statement does two things. First, it tells readers an essay’s topic. Second, it
presents the writer’s attitude, opinion, idea, or point about that topic. For example, look at the
following thesis statement:
Owning a pet has several important benefits.
In this thesis statement, the topic is owning a pet; the writer’s main point is that owning a pet has
several important benefits.
Activity 1
For each thesis statement below, single-underline the topic and double-underline the main point
that the writer wishes to express about the topic.
EXAMPLES Our company president should be fired for three main reasons.
The Internet has led to new kinds of frustration in everyday life.
1. Having to care for a child requires hard work, commitment, and patience.
2. Celebrities are often poor role models because of the ways they dress, talk, and behave.
3. My first night as a security guard turned out to be one of the most frightening experiences of
my life.
4. SUVs are inferior to cars because they are harder to control, more expensive, and dangerous to
the environment.
5. The twentieth century produced three inventions that dramatically changed the lives of all
Americans.
6. Stress in the fast-food workplace has led to serious physical, psychological, and emotional
problems for employees.
7. Advertisers target young people when marketing cigarettes, alcohol, and adult movies.
8. Christian Bale’s varied film roles demonstrate his versatility as an actor.
9. American carmakers need to produce vehicles that are fuel efficient, safe, and less expensive.
10. Being successful at any job requires punctuality, dependability, and ambition.
Writing a Good Thesis I
Now that you know how thesis statements work, you can begin writing your own. To start, you
need a topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow. Suppose, for example, that an instructor
asks you to write a paper on marriage. Such a subject is too broad to cover in a five hundred-
word essay. You would have to write a book to support adequately any point you might make
about the general subject of marriage. What you would need to do, then, is limit your subject.
Narrow it down until you have a thesis that you can deal with specifically in about five hundred
words. In the box that follows are (1) several general subjects, (2) a limited version of each
general subject, and (3) a thesis statement about each limited subject.
Activity 2
Sometimes a subject must go through several stages of limiting before it is narrow enough to
write about. Below are four lists reflecting several stages that writers went through in moving
from a general subject to a narrow thesis statement. Number the stages in each list from 1 to 5,
with 1 marking the broadest stage and 5 marking the thesis.
1- Learning a second language.
2- Social Media.
3- Youtube.
4- Divorce.
5- University Life.
How to Limit and Focus Your Thesis
You have just learned that it is important to limit a topic. One way to do this is by clustering,
which is also a good way to gather information. (If necessary, turn back to page 28 to review
how to cluster.) Let’s say your instructor assigns a paper on physical exercise.
Obviously, this is far too broad a topic for a short paper. Therefore, you can try to cluster ideas
around this topic as a way to limit it to an aspect of the topic that you know most about or that
you are most interested in. Here’s an example of how one student began to use this method to
limit her topic:

Immediately after completing this exercise, the student realized that the type of physical exercise
she knew most about was running. So, she decided to limit her essay to that topic. However, she
also knew that she would have to focus on a main point about running and that her clustering
suggested several different main points. Here are just three:
 • Running is an easy way to get needed exercise: it is inexpensive, can be done almost
anywhere, and requires few special skills.
• Running benefits the lungs, circulatory system, and the leg muscles.
• Running burns calories and helps maintain a healthy weight.
To determine which of these three main points she could most easily write about, the student
used another prewriting technique, making a list. (If necessary, turn back to pages 26– 28 to
review list making.) In fact, she listed everything she knew about each of her three potential
thesis statements:

Writing a Good Thesis II

When writing thesis statements, people often make mistakes that undermine their chances of
producing an effective essay. One mistake is to simply announce the subject rather than state a
true thesis. A second mistake is to write a thesis that is too broad, and a third is to write a thesis
that is too narrow. A fourth error is to write a thesis containing more than one idea.
Here are tips for avoiding such mistakes and writing good thesis statements.
1- Write Statements, Not Announcements
• The subject of this paper will be my parents.
• I want to talk about the crime wave in our country.
• The baby-boom generation is the concern of this essay.
In this first group, the sentences are not thesis statements but announcements of a topic.
For instance, “The subject of this paper will be my parents” does not make a point about the
parents but merely tells, in a rather weak and unimaginative way, the writer’s general subject.
Remember, a thesis statement must make a point about a limited subject. Effective thesis
statements based on the above sentences could be as follows:
• My parents each struggled with personal demons.
• The recent crime wave in our city has several apparent causes.
• The baby-boom generation has changed American society in key ways.

2- Avoid Statements That Are Too Broad

• Disease has shaped human history.
• Insects are fascinating creatures.
• Men and women are very different.
In the preceding examples, each statement is too broad to be supported adequately in a student
essay. For instance, “Disease has shaped human history” would require far more than a five-
hundred-word essay. In fact, there are many lengthy books written on the exact same topic.
Remember, your thesis statement should be focused enough that it can be effectively supported
in a five-paragraph essay. Revised thesis statements based on the topics in the above sentences
could be as follows:

• In the mid-1980s, AIDS changed people’s attitudes about dating.

• Strength, organization, and communication make the ant one of nature’s most successful
insects.
• Men and women are often treated very differently in the workplace.

3- Avoid Statements That Are Too Narrow

Here are three statements that are too narrow:

• The speed limit near my home is sixty-five miles per hour.

• A hurricane hit southern Florida last summer.
• A person must be at least thirty-five years old to be elected president of the United States.
In this third group, there is no room in any of the three statements for support to be given. For
instance, “The speed limit near my home is sixty-five miles per hour” is too narrow to be
expanded into a paper. It is a simple fact that does not require any support. Such a statement is
sometimes called a dead-end statement: there is no place to go with it. Remember, a thesis
statement must be broad enough to require support in an essay. Successful thesis statements
based on the preceding sentences are as follows:
 • The speed limit near my home should be lowered to fifty-five miles per hour for several
reasons.
• Federal officials made a number of mistakes in their response to the recent Florida
hurricane.
• The requirement that a U.S. president must be at least thirty-five years old is unfair and
unreasonable.

4- Make Sure Statements Develop Only One Idea

Here are three statements that contain more than one idea:
• One of the most serious problems affecting young people today is bullying, and it is time
more kids learned the value of helping others.
• Studying with others has several benefits, but it also has drawbacks and can be difficult to
schedule.
• Teachers have played an important role in my life, but they were not as important as my
parents.
In this fourth group, each statement contains more than one idea. For instance, “One of the most
serious problems affecting young people today is bullying, and it is time more kids learned the
value of helping others” clearly has two separate ideas (“One of the most serious problems
affecting young people today is bullying” and “it is time more kids learned the value of helping
others”). The reader is asked to focus on two separate points, each of which more logically
belongs in an essay of its own. Remember, the point of an essay is to communicate a single main
idea to readers. To be as clear as possible, then, try to limit your thesis statement to the single
key idea you want your readers to know. Revised thesis statements based on each of the
examples above are as follows:

• One of the most serious problems affecting young people today is bullying.
• Studying with others has several benefits.
• Teachers have played an important role in my life.

Step 2: Support the Thesis with Specific Evidence

The first essential step in writing a successful essay is to formulate a clearly stated thesis. The
second basic step is to support the thesis with specific reasons or details. To ensure that your
essay will have adequate support, you may find an informal outline very helpful. Write down a
brief version of your thesis idea, and then work out and jot down the three points that will
support the thesis.
Here is the scratch outline that was prepared by the author of the earlier essay on moviegoing:
Moviegoing is a problem.
1. Inconvenience of going out
2. Tempting snacks
3. Other moviegoers
The Importance of Specific Details
Just as a thesis must be developed with three supporting points, each supporting point must be
developed with specific details. Specific details are valuable in two key ways. First, details excite
the reader’s interest. They make writing a pleasure to read, for we all enjoy learning particulars
about people, places, and things. Second, details serve to explain a writer’s points. They give the
evidence needed for us to see and understand general ideas.
All too often, the body paragraphs in essays contain only vague generalities, rather than the
specific supporting details that are needed to engage and convince a reader. Here is what one of
the paragraphs in “The Hazards of Moviegoing” would have looked like if the writer had not
detailed her supporting evidence vividly:

Some of the other patrons are even more of a problem than the theater itself. Many people in the
theater often show themselves to be inconsiderate. They make noises and create disturbances at
their seats. Included are people in every age group, from the young to the old. Some act as if they
were at home in their own living room watching TV. And people are often messy, so that you’re
constantly aware of all the food they’re eating. People are also always moving around near you,
creating a disturbance and interrupting your enjoyment of the movie.

The following box contrasts the vague support in the preceding paragraph with the specific
support in the essay.
The effective paragraph from the essay provides details that make vividly clear the statement that
patrons are a problem in the theater. The writer specifies the exact age groups (little kids,
teenagers, and adults) and the offenses of each (giggling, talking and whistling, and loud
comments). She specifies the various food excesses (crinkled wrappers, gum on seats, dropped
popcorn and soda containers). Finally, she provides concrete details that enable us to see and
hear other disturbances (coughs and burps, squirming, constant trips to restrooms, jostling for
elbow room). The ineffective paragraph asks us to guess about these details; the effective
paragraph describes the details in a specific and lively way.
The Importance of Adequate Details
One of the most common and most serious problems in students’ writing is inadequate
development. You must provide enough specific details to fully support the point in a body
paragraph of an essay. Without…additional support, your paragraph would be underdeveloped.
Students may try to disguise unsupported paragraphs through repetition and generalities. Do not
fall into this “wordiness trap.” Be prepared to do the plain hard work needed to ensure that each
paragraph has solid support.
Activity 6
Both of the following body paragraphs were written on the same topic, and each has a clear
opening point. Which paragraph is adequately developed? Which one has only several
particulars and uses mostly vague, general, wordy sentences to conceal that it is starved for
specific details?
Eternal Youth?—No, Thanks
I wouldn’t want to be a teenager again, first of all, because I wouldn’t want to worry about talking to
girls. I still remember how scary it was to call up a girl and ask her out. My heart would race, my pulse
would pound, and perspiration would trickle down my face, adding to my acne by the second. I never
knew whether my voice would come out deep and masculine, like a television anchorman’s, or squeaky,
like a little boy’s. Then there were the questions: Would she be at home? If she was, would she want to
talk to me? And if she did, what would I say? The one time I did get up the nerve to take a girl in my
homeroom to a movie, I was so tongue-tied that I stared silently at the box of popcorn in my lap until the
feature finally started. Needless to say, I wasn’t very interesting company.

Terrors of My Teenage Years

I wouldn’t want to be a teenager again, first of all, because I wouldn’t want to worry about talking to
girls. Calling up a girl to ask her out was something that I completely dreaded. I didn’t know what words
to express or how to express them. I would have all the symptoms of nervousness when I got on the
phone. I worried a great deal about how I would sound, and I had a lot of doubts about the girl’s reaction.
Once, I managed to call up a girl to go out, but the evening turned out to be a disaster. I was too unsure of
myself to act in a confident way. I couldn’t think of anything to say and just kept quiet. Now that I look
back on it, I really made a fool of myself. Agonizing over my attempts at relationships with the opposite
sex made adolescence a very uncomfortable time.
The first paragraph offers a series of well-detailed examples of the author’s nerve-racking
experiences, as a teenager, with girls. The second paragraph, on the other hand, is
underdeveloped. For instance, the second paragraph makes only the general observation “I would
have all the symptoms of nervousness when I got on the phone,” but the first paragraph states,
“My heart would race, my pulse would pound, and perspiration would trickle down my face.”
The second paragraph makes the general statement “I worried a great deal about how I would
sound,” but in the first paragraph the author wonders if his voice will “come out deep and
masculine, like a television anchorman’s, or squeaky, like a little boy’s.” And the second
paragraph has no specific description of the evening that turned into a disaster. In summary, the
second paragraph lacks the full, detailed support needed to develop its opening point
convincingly.
Activity 8
Each cluster below contains one topic, one thesis statement, and two supporting sentences. In the
space provided, label each item as follows:
T—topic
TH—thesis statement
S—supporting sentence
Group 1
_____ a. Films based on historical events are sometimes shown in class.
_____ b. Making history more interesting
_____ c. Some history teachers use innovative methods to increase student interest.
_____ d. Instructors ask students to write short plays dramatizing historical events.
Group 2
_____ a. Vegetarian diets
_____ b. Staying away from meat can reduce intake of fat and cholesterol.
_____ c. Eating vegetables helps the environment because raising veggies uses less energy than
raising animals.
_____ d. Vegetarianism benefits both the individual and the environment.
Group 3
_____ a. Medicine
_____ b. Antibiotics have enabled doctors to control many diseases that were once fatal.
_____ c. Organ transplants have prolonged the lives of tens of thousands of people.
_____ d. Advances in modern medicine have had great success in helping people.
Group 4
_____ a. Reading
_____ b. Parents can take steps to encourage their children to enjoy reading.
_____ c. The adults’ own behavior can influence children to become readers.
_____ d. Parents can make sure the physical environment of the home encourages reading.
Group 5
_____ a. Insects perform many helpful functions for human beings.
_____ b. Insects are essential to the growth of many important crops.
_____ c. Insects
_____ d. Insects protect the environment by removing wastes and controlling disease-causing
germs.
Activity 10
Write A beside each sentence that is an announcement rather than a thesis statement. Write OK
beside the statement in each pair that is a clear, limited point that could be developed in an essay.
1. _____ a. I want to discuss what it means to be a good citizen.
_____ b. Being a good citizen means becoming informed about important social,
environmental, and political issues.
2. _____ a. I made several mistakes in the process of trying to win the respect and affection of
my teenage stepson.
_____ b. My thesis in this paper is relationships between stepparents and stepchildren.
3. _____ a. Successful teamwork requires focusing on the group’s goals, not your own.
_____ b. This paper explains how to work well in a team.
4. _____ a. This paper will be about sharing housework.
_____ b. Deciding who will perform certain unpleasant household chores can be the crisis that
makes or breaks a marriage.
5. _____ a. I want to show how cardiology has changed in the last 20 years.
_____ b. The advances in cardiology in the last 20 years have been miraculous.
Activity 11
Write TN beside each statement that is too narrow to be developed in an essay. Write OK beside
the statement in each pair that is a clear, limited point.
1. _____ a. I had squash, tomatoes, and corn in my garden last summer.
_____ b. Vegetable gardening can be a frustrating hobby.
2. _____ a. The main road into our town is lined with billboards.
_____ b. For several reasons, billboards should be abolished.
3. _____ a. The addition of a fifty-seat computer lab at our college has made it
possible to expand the computer-science, mathematics, and English curricula.
_____ b. Our college just added a fifty-seat computer lab.
4. _____ a. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter is about the Puritans.
_____ b. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter criticizes Puritan morality.
5. _____ a. Americans are living longer than before because of better diets, a cleaner
environment, and advanced medical care.
_____ b. The average American can now expect to live longer than before.
Activity 12
Write TB beside each statement that is too broad to be developed in an essay. Write OK beside
the statement in each pair that is a clear, limited point.
1. _____ a. After-school art and athletic clubs provide healthy outlets for young people.
_____ b. After-school art and athletic clubs at Garfield Junior High School have helped
reduce the number of thefts, gang wars, and acts of vandalism once common in our
community.
2. _____ a. Modern life makes people suspicious and unfriendly.
_____ b. A frightening experience in my neighborhood has caused me to be a much more
cautious person in several ways.
3. _____ a. The attacks of 9/11 dramatized the heroism we have come to expect from our police
and firefighters.
_____ b. Americans responded well during the attacks of 9/11.
4. _____ a. Learning new skills can be difficult and frustrating.
_____ b. Learning to write takes work, patience, and a sense of humor.
5. _____ a. I didn’t get along with my family, so I did many foolish things.
_____ b. Running away from home taught me that my parents weren’t as terrible as I thought.
Activity 13
For each pair, write 2 beside the statement that contains more than one idea. Write OK beside the
statement that is a clear, limited point.
1. _____ a Working with old people changed my stereotypical ideas about the elderly.
_____ b. My life has moved in new directions since the rewarding job I had working with
older people last summer.
2. _____ a. The new architecture on this campus is very unpleasant, although the expansion was
desperately needed.
_____ b. Our new college library building is ugly, intimidating, and inefficient.
3. _____ a. Forest fires are one way nature creates new habitats.
_____ b. Forest fires destroy lives and property, but they do provide some benefits to the
environment.
4. _____ a. My roommate and I are compatible in most ways, but we still have conflicts at times.
_____ b. My roommate has his own unique systems for studying, writing term papers, and
cleaning our room.
5. _____ a. Although the Modern Language Department offers first-rate instruction in several
European languages, many professors and students see the need to offer Arabic,
Chinese, and Hindi as well.
_____ b. Many professors and students believe there is a need for courses in Arabic, Chinese,
and Hindi.
Completing Thesis Statements
Activity 14
Complete the following thesis statements by adding a third supporting point that will parallel the
two already provided. You might want to first check the section on parallelism in Chapter 5
(page 111) to make sure you understand parallel form.
1. A successful camping trip requires familiarity with the terrain, a good tent and sleeping bag,
and __________.
2. A good salesperson needs to like people, to be aggressive, and __________.
3. Rather than blame myself for failing the course, I blamed the instructor, my adviser, and even
__________.
4. Anyone who buys an old house planning to fix it up should be prepared to put in a lot of time,
hard work, and __________.
5. Our old car guzzles gas, makes funny noises, and __________.
6. My mother, my boss, and my __________ are three people who are very important in my life
right now.
7. Before you begin an exercise program, decide on your exercise goals, pick an activity that can
help you achieve those goals, and __________.
8. Some restaurant patrons seem to leave their honesty, their cleanliness, and their __________
at home.
9. During my first semester at college, I had to learn how to manage my time, my diet, and
__________.
10. The three best things I have done for someone else are working with Habitat for Humanity,
becoming a Big Sister to a neighborhood child, and __________.
Limiting a Topic and Writing a Thesis Statement
The following two activities will give you practice in distinguishing general from limited
subjects and in writing a thesis.
Providing Specific Evidence
Activity 18
Provide three details that logically support each of the following points. Your details can be
drawn from your own experience, or they can be invented. In each case, the details should show
specifically what the point expresses only generally. State your details briefly in several words
rather than in complete sentences.
EXAMPLE
We quickly spruced up the apartment before our guest arrived.
1. Hid toys and newspapers in spare closet
2. Vacuumed pet hairs off sofa
3. Sprayed air freshener around living room
1. The hike up to the mountain lookout was exciting.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
2. My hometown is worth visiting.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
3. There are several reasons why I put off studying.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
4. Working at the hospital has taught me many valuable skills.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
5. I have several ways to earn extra cash.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
6. My car needs repairs.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
7. Friday evening, I didn’t sit still for a minute.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
8. My best friends are very different, but I love each of them.
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________